A New Year

Wow, it's a new year.

The rest of you may think, Becky, that happened a month ago! Why are you just now doing your New Year's reflections?

Well, I'm in a place where the Lunar New Year is a bigger deal than the Solar, so I'm aligning my reflecting accordingly.

It was hard being by myself. Yet I praise God for teaching me through that time that I CAN live by myself, that He really IS enough, that I really am enough. If I live by myself in the future when I go back to the United States, Father has taught me that I can handle it and even love it. I learned to truly enjoy "nesting" and making a place my own.

Now that I have a dear friend here living with me and sharing experiences with me, I want to learn to appreciate and love her the way Jesus does. I'm not very good at loving, and I naturally think of myself more than others. But what am I if I have not love? Nothing else matters. Living by myself, I had to learn to love myself and even enjoy myself better. Now living with another person again, I am journeying through learning more submission, satisfaction, and selfless love.

Not to mention learning where a particularly delightful gelato place is that is run by a man who studied in Canada and New York and speaks excellent English! Discovering this shop provided an excellent sense of continuity as it's the same kind of place I would patronize in Austin. A local business, started by someone with a creative, entrepreneurial spirit.

No real reflection here, this is just our apartment complex two nights ago on New Year's Eve. This is just one of the many firecrackers...the lit-up stairwells you can see to the right also have flashing firecrackers, and the sky to the top left has fireworks. It really sounded like a war zone!

Some kids up on the roof of our apartment doing their own firecrackers. Later that night we also went out with friends to shoot off fireworks. While it was fun to hang out with the local people and do what they do, it was also challenging because we were outside from midnight to 2 am and it was bitterly cold. (That's right, we were THOSE guys who are still shooting off fireworks 2 hours after New Year's). Rachel and I enjoyed the sparklers but were not brave enough to actually shoot off any fireworks. :-) We were very happy to get back home, eat some peanut butter crackers and drink hot chocolate with the heater on, and watch a Friends episode before bed!

This year, I want to be a swinger of birches (er...vines?) like the Robert Frost poem. I'm so often caught up in pride and controlling things, and wanting to measure up and be counted adequate and worthy. I would really rather just enjoy and trust Father like a child, and not worry about what people think about me and what I'm doing.

Climbed a mountain (well, hill, really, but still good exercise!) on New Year's Day. I think that's supposed to be good luck or something. Anyway, I don't want to think of any mountains as insurmountable, because of the power that works within me. There are so many challenges looming ahead in my time here and I feel like I'm on a time crunch, and I keep wondering what will happen if my dreams don't come true, if I will look like a failure or if I will not be someone to look up to. The way I've been thinking constantly centers on me, yet I don't want to focus on my power but on His. As I'm reading through the Old Testament about Father refusing to fight for the people unless it was through crazy ways like marching around a city with trumpet-blowing, or only taking 300 men who lapped water like dogs and sending the rest home, I'm reminded that He still works like this. If I shine, He will not receive the glory. He must become greater, I must become less.

The fireworks show downtown last night! We didn't dare brave the crowds to try to get to where they were actually fired, but we walked to a bridge relatively close to our apartment and had a great view from there.

According to a friend, the city spends millions of the local currency on this fireworks show every year.

It was like the 4th of July in winter!

Some of the crowd that gathered to watch the display

Nothing to do with New Year's, but i'd never seen this little park before and thought it was so cool! There's even a little bridge where you can walk over part of the waterfall.

My last two thoughts. Here is a song that really spoke to me recently and that I want to be a sort of motto for my life:

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died
My richest gain I count but loss
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast
Save in the death of Christ my God.
All the vain things that charm me most
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See, from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
That were an offering far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all. 

Somehow, this song reminded me of how desperately I need to know him. I already know Him in the sense of salvation, but now and then I encounter someone, like this little girl  http://www.godvine.com/12-Year-Old-Prodigy-Paints-her-Visions-of-Heaven-43.html who talks about him like an old friend. I mean, whose eyes seem to go far away, and a smile crinkles their mouth, as they think of memories with him, fights with him, moments of incredible closeness and awe. Someone who laughs when they think about him, cries when they think about him. This is the kind of closeness I want. I think I'm on the way, but I haven't yet reached it. I feel that if I do, life will be so natural. I will talk to him expecting Him to speak back. I will seek more earnestly for answers because I will have more faith that they are coming. I will live with more certainty as I hear his voice affirming that I am exactly where He wants me. I will never feel alone.

So I look forward to another year of enjoying His presence, His teaching, His blessings, and His revelation.